The Law of Civilization and Decay

From the dawn of European history to the rise of modern London, the Eastern trade has enriched every community where it has centred, and, among others, North Italy in the Middle Ages. Venice, Florence, Genoa, and Pisa were its creations.

In the year 452, when the barbarian migrations were flowing over the Roman provinces in steadily increasing volume, the Huns sacked Aquileia, and the inhabitants of the ravaged districts fled for shelter to the islands which lie in the shallow water at the head of the Adriatic. For many generations these fugitives remained poor, subsisting mainly on fish, and selling salt as their only product; but gradually they developed into a race highly adapted to flourish under the conditions which began to prevail after the council of Clermont.

Isolated save toward the sea, without agriculture or mines, but two paths were open to them, piracy and commerce: and they excelled in both. By the reign of Charlemagne they were prosperous; and when the closing of the valley of the Danube forced traffic to go by sea, Venice and Amalfi obtained a monopoly of what was left of the Eastern trade. For many years, however, that trade was not highly lucrative. Though Rome always offered a certain market for brocades for vestments and for altar coverings, for incense, and jewels for shrines, ready money was scarce, the West having few products which Asiatics or Africans were willing to take in exchange for their goods. Therefore it was not through enterprises sanctioned by the priesthood, that Venice won in the economic competition which began to prevail in the eleventh century.

Venetians prospered because they were bolder and more unscrupulous than their neighbours. They did without compunction what was needful for gain, even when the needful thing was a damnable crime in the eyes of the devout.

The valley of the Nile, though fertile, produces neither wood nor iron, nor men of the fighting type; for these the caliphs were ready to pay, and the Venetians provided them all. Even as early as 971 dealings with the common enemy in material of war had reached proportions which not only stimulated the Emperor John Zimisces to energetic diplomatic remonstrance, but made him threaten to burn all the ships he captured laden with suspicious cargoes.

To sell timber for ships, and iron for swords, to the Saracens, was a mortal sin in children of the Church; but such a sin was as nothing beside the infamy of kidnapping believers as slaves for infidels, who made them soldiers to fight against their God. Charlemagne and the popes after him tried to suppress the traffic, but without avail. Slaving was so lucrative that it was carried on in the streets of Rome herself,126 and in the thirteenth century two thousand Europeans were annually disposed of in Damietta and Alexandria, from whom the Mamelukes, the finest corps of soldiers in the East, were recruited.

Thus a race grew up in Italy, which differed from the people of France and Germany because of the absence of those qualities which had caused the Germans to survive when the inhabitants of the Empire decayed. The mediæval Italians prospered because they were lacking in the imagination which made the Northern peoples subservient to the miracle-worker, and among mediæval Italians the Venetians, from their exposed position, came to be the most daring, energetic, and unscrupulous. By the end of the eleventh century their fleet was so superior to the Greek, that the Emperor Alexis had to confide to them the defence of the harbour of Durazzo against Robert Guiscard. Guiscard attacked Durazzo in 1081, at the time of the revolution which immediately preceded the debasement of the Byzantine coinage; and the demonstration that Venice had already absorbed most of the carrying trade, seems to prove that, during the last half of the eleventh century, the centre of exchanges had a pronounced tendency to abandon Constantinople. Moreover, the result of the campaign showed that the Venetian navy was the strongest in the Mediterranean, and this was of vital moment to the success of the crusades twenty years later, for, without the command of the sea, the permanent occupation of Palestine would have been impossible.

After the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, almost the first operations of Godfrey de Bouillon were against the Syrian ports; but as he controlled too small a force to act alone, he made a treaty with Venice, by which, in consideration of two hundred ships, he promised to cede to her a third part of every town taken. Baldwin made a similar arrangement with the Genoese, and, as the coast was subdued, the Italian cities assumed their grants, and established their administrations. In the end the Venetians predominated at Tyre, the Genoese at Acre, and the Pisans at Antioch. Before the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, the spices, drugs, brocades, carpets, porcelains, and gems of India and China, reached the Mediterranean mainly by two routes. One by way of the Persian Gulf to Bagdad, up the Euphrates to Rakka, and by land to Aleppo, whence they were conveyed by caravan either to Antioch or Damascus. Damascus, beside being the starting-place of caravans for Mecca and Egypt, and the emporium for the products of Persia, had important manufactures of its own. Its glass, porcelain, steel, and brocades were famous, and it was a chief market for furs, which were highly prized throughout the Middle Ages, when heating was not understood.

The second route was by water. Indian merchants usually sold their cargoes at Aden, whence they were taken to a port in Upper Egypt, floated down the Nile to Cairo, and bought by Europeans at Damietta or Alexandria. The products of Egypt itself were valuable, and next to Constantinople, Cairo was the richest city west of the Indus.

What Europe gave to the Orientals in return is not so well known; but, beside raw materials and slaves, her woollens were much esteemed. At all events, exchanges must have become more favourable to her, as is proved by the increased supply of the precious metals.

Why the short period of expansion, which followed upon the re-establishment of the silver standard in the West, should have been succeeded by a sharp contraction is unknown, but the fact seems proved by the coinage. In the reign of Charlemagne a silver pound of 7680 grains was made the monetary unit, which was divided into 240 denarii, or pence.127

For some time these pence were tolerably maintained, but as the empire of Charlemagne disintegrated, they deteriorated until, by the end of the twelfth century, those coined at Venice were but a quarter of their original weight and three parts alloy.128 After Hattin a new expansion began, in which Venice took the lead. The battle was fought in 1187, and some years later, but probably before 1200, the grosso was struck, a piece of fine silver, of good weight, which thereafter was maintained at the standard. Half a century later gold appeared. Florence coined the florin in 1252, Venice the ducat in 1284, and between the two dates, Saint Louis issued his crowns.

The return of the precious metals to the West indicated a revival of trade and a change in the form of competition. Instead of the imagination, the economic faculty began to predominate, and energy chose money as its vent. Within a generation the miracle fell decisively in power, and the beginning of this most crucial of social revolutions is visible in the third crusade, the famous expedition led by Philip Augustus and Cœur de Lion.

These two great soldiers probably learned the art of fortification at the siege of Acre, the most remarkable passage of arms of the Middle Ages. The siege is said to have cost one hundred thousand lives, and certainly called forth all the engineering skill of the time. Guy de Lusignan, having been liberated by Saladin soon after Hattin, wandered about the country, abandoned and forlorn, until at last he sat down before Acre, in 1189, with a force inferior to the garrison. There he was joined by the kings of France and England, who succeeded in capturing the city after a desperate defence of two years. An immense booty was taken, but the clergy complained that two secular princes had embezzled the heritage of God. On the other hand, the troops had not received the usual assistance from miracles; for though assaults were delivered almost daily, none were worked, and the Virgin herself only appeared once, and then so quietly as to arouse no enthusiasm.

After the surrender Philip went home, while Richard remained in command. The whole country had been overrun, only a few strongholds like the Krak des Chevaliers and Tortosa held out; and Richard, far from following the example of the first crusaders, who marched straight for the relics at Jerusalem, turned his attention to re-establishing the centres of trade upon the coast.

He moved south along the shore, keeping close to his fleet, with the enemy following on the mountains. As he approached Joppa, the Saracens descended into the plain and gave battle. They were decisively defeated, and Richard occupied Joppa without resistance. From Joppa the road ran direct to Jerusalem. The way was not long nor the country difficult, and there is no reason to suppose an attack to have been particularly hazardous. On the contrary, when Richard advanced, the opposition was not unusually stubborn, and he actually pursued the enemy to within sight of the walls. Yet he resolutely resisted the pressure of the clergy to undertake a siege, the inference being that the power which controlled him held Jerusalem to be worthless. That power must have been capital, for the treaty which he negotiated was as frankly mercenary as though made in modern times. The seaboard from Tyre to Joppa was ceded to the Franks; Ascalon, which was the key to Egypt, was dismantled, and the only mention made of Jerusalem was that it should be open to pilgrims in the future, as it had been in the past. Of the cross, which fifty years before had been prized above all the treasures of the East, not a word was said, nor does it appear that, after Hattin, either Infidels or Christians attached a money value to it.

Some chroniclers have insisted that Richard felt remorse at thus abandoning his God; and when, in a skirmish, he saw the walls of Jerusalem, they related that he hid his face and wept. He may have done so, but, during his life, the time came when Christian knights felt naught but exultation at having successfully bartered the Sepulchre for money. After Richard’s departure, the situation of the Franks in the Holy Land went rapidly from bad to worse. The decay of faith constantly relaxed the bond which had once united them against the Moslems, while they were divided amongst themselves by commercial jealousies. The Temple and the Hospital carried on perpetual private wars about disputed property, the fourth crusade miscarried, and the garrison of Joppa was massacred, while Europe looked on with indifference.

When this point was reached, the instinct of self-preservation seems to have roused the clergy to the fact that their fate was bound up with the fate of the holy places: if the miracle were discredited, their reign was at an end. Accordingly, Innocent III., on his election, threw himself into a new agitation with all the intensity of his nature. Foulques de Neuilly was chosen to preach, like Saint Bernard; but his success, at first, was not flattering. He was insulted publicly by Richard, and was even accused of having embezzled the funds entrusted to him. At length, in the year 1199, Tybalt, Count of Champagne, and Louis, Count of Blois, took the cross at a tournament they were holding at the castle of Ecry. They soon were joined by others, but probably the most famous baron of the pilgrimage was Simon de Montfort.

At the end of the twelfth century the great fiefs had not been absorbed, and the Count of Champagne was a powerful sovereign. He was therefore chosen leader of the expedition, and, at a meeting held at Compiègne, the three chief princes agreed to send a committee of six to Venice to contract for transportation. In this committee, Ville-Hardouin, who wrote the chronicle of the war, represented Tybalt.

The doge was then Henry Dandolo, perhaps the most remarkable man Venice ever produced. Though nearly ninety-five, he was as vigorous as in middle life. A materialist and a sceptic, he was the best sailor, the ablest diplomatist, and the keenest speculator in Europe; and while, as a statesman and a commander, he raised his country to the pinnacle of glory, he proved himself the easy superior of Innocent III. in intrigue. So eminent were his abilities that, by common consent, he was chosen leader of a force which held some of the foremost captains of the age; and when, by his sagacity, Constantinople had been captured, he refused the imperial crown.

Ville-Hardouin always spoke of him with deep respect as “the good duke, exceeding wise and prudent;” and, indeed, without him the Frankish princes would certainly have fallen victims to the cunning of the Greeks, whom he alone knew how to over-reach, and whom he hated because his eyes had been seared by the Emperor Manuel Comnenus, when he had been upon a mission at his court.

In his hands the Frankish envoys were like children, bewildered by the wealth and splendour which surrounded them. After stating their errand to Dandolo, they waited eight days for an answer, and were then tendered a contract which has the look of having been part of a premeditated plan to ensnare the crusaders, and make them serve the republic.

The Venetians bound themselves to provide shipping for 4500 knights with their horses, 9000 squires, and 20,000 foot, with provisions for nine months, for 85,000 marks of silver; probably about equal to $5,500,000 of our money. But beside this the city proposed, “for the love of God,” to add fifty galleys, and divide the conquests equally. Whatever its character, and however much such obligations were beyond the ability of the Franks, the contract was executed and sent to Innocent for ratification, who approved it with the proviso that no hostilities should be undertaken against Christians during the crusade. The pilgrims were to meet at Venice in the spring.

When Ville-Hardouin returned, Tybalt was dying, and his loss threw all into confusion. Possibly also the suspicion spread that the Venetians had imposed on the committee, for many of the nobles sailed from other ports where better terms were to be made, among whom was Reginald de Dampierre, to whom Tybalt had confided his treasure. So, in the spring of 1202, hardly more than half the knights presented themselves at Venice, and these found it quite impossible to meet their engagements. Even when the princes had sent their plate and jewels to the Ducal Palace, a deficit, estimated at 34,000 marks, remained.

On their side the Venetians declined to make any abatement of their price, but offered as a compromise to give time, and collect the balance from plunder. As a preliminary they proposed an attack on Zara, an Adriatic port, which had revolted and transferred its allegiance to the King of Hungary.

Few propositions could have been a greater outrage on the Church. Not only were the people of Zara fellow-Christians, against whom the Franks had no complaint, but the King of Hungary was himself a crusader, his dominions were under the protection of the pope, and an attack on him was tantamount to an attack on Rome herself.

On these points difference of opinion was impossible, and the papal legate, with all the other ecclesiastics, denounced the Venetians and threatened them with excommunication. The result showed that force already expressed itself in the West through money, and not through the imagination.

What followed is the more interesting since it can be demonstrated that, when beyond the Alps, and withdrawn from the pressure of capital, the French barons were as emotional as ever. While these very negotiations were pending, the subjects of Philip Augustus had deserted him in a mass, and had grovelled before Innocent as submissively as if he had been Hildebrand.

The first wife of Philip Augustus was Ingeburga, a Danish princess, for whom he had an irrepressible disinclination. In 1195 he obtained a divorce from her, by an assembly of prelates presided over by the Cardinal of Champagne. He then married Agnes de Méranie, to whom he was devotedly attached; Ingeburga appealed to Rome, and Innocent declared the divorce void, and ordered Philip to separate “from his concubine.”

Philip refused, and Innocent commanded his legate to put the kingdom under interdict. At Vienne, in the month of January, 1200, at the dead of night, the magical formulas were recited. When the Christ upon the altar had been veiled, the sacred wafer burned, the miracle-working corpses hidden in the crypt, before the shuddering people, the priest laid his curse upon the king until he should put away his harlot.

From that hour all religious rites were suspended. The church doors were barred, the bells were silent, the sick died unshriven, the dead lay unburied. The king summoned his bishops, and threatened to drive them from France: it was of no avail. The barons shrank from him, his very men-at-arms fell off from him; he was alone as Henry had been at Canossa. The people were frenzied, and even went to England to obtain priestly aid. The Count of Ponthieu had to marry Philip’s sister at Rouen, within the Norman jurisdiction.

In his extremity Philip called a parliament at Paris, and Agnes, clad in mourning, implored protection, but not a man moved; a mortal terror was in every heart. She was then in the seventh month. The assembly decided that the king must submit, and Agnes supplicated the pope not to divide her from her husband; the crown, she said, was indifferent to her. But this was a struggle for supremacy, and Innocent was inexorable. A council was convened at Néelle, where Philip promised to take back Ingeburga and part from Agnes. He explained that she was pregnant, and to leave the realm might kill her; but the priests demanded absolute submission, and he swore upon the evangelists to see her no more. Agnes, broken by her misery, set forth for a Norman castle, where she died in bearing a son, whom she called Tristan, from her sorrow at his birth.

The soldier, who belonged to the old imaginative society, had been conquered by the Church, which was the incarnation of the imagination; but Dandolo was a different development. He was the creation of economic competition, and he trampled the clergy under his feet.

Although, apparently, profoundly sceptical, as the man must be who is the channel through which money acts, he understood how to play upon the imaginations of others, and arranged a solemn function to glorify the Sepulchre. One Sunday he summoned both citizens and pilgrims to Saint Mark’s, and mounting the pulpit, he addressed the congregation.

“My lords, you are engaged to the greatest people of the world, for the highest enterprise that ever was undertaken; and I am old and feeble, and need repose, and am infirm in body; but I see that none can command and control you as I can, who am your doge. If you will permit me to take the cross to lead you, and let my son stay here in my place and conduct the government, I will go to live or die with you, and with the pilgrims.”129

Ville-Hardouin’s simple chronicle shows how perfectly the old man knew his audience: —

“There was great pity among the people of the country and the pilgrims, and many tears were shed, because this worthy man had so much cause to stay behind; for he was old and … his sight poor.”130

Amidst an outburst of enthusiasm assent was given. Then, while the church rang with shouts, Dandolo knelt before the altar, in a passion of tears fixed the cross to the ducal bonnet, and rose, the commander of the finest army in the world.

And Dandolo was a great commander; a commander of the highest stamp. He tolerated no insubordination, and trod the clergy down. When Peter of Capua, the papal legate, interfered, Dandolo sternly told him that the army of Christ lacked not for military chiefs, and that if priests would stay therein they must content themselves with prayers.

A Cistercian monk, named Gunther, who had been appointed to follow his abbot on the pilgrimage, kept a chronicle of what he saw. His superior, named Martin, was so disheartened at Venice that he asked the legate for absolution from his vow, and for permission to return to his convent at Bâle; but this request the cardinal refused. The priests had determined to stay by Dandolo and fight him to the last. Therefore the abbot sailed with the Venetians, but he learned a bitter lesson at Zara. There the clergy received a letter from Innocent, explaining the position of the Church, and threatening with excommunication all who should molest the King of Hungary. Simon de Montfort and a portion of the more devout, who had from the first been scandalized at the contract made with Dandolo, then withdrew and camped apart; and, at a meeting called to consider the situation, Guy, Abbot of Vaux-de-Cernay, tried to read the letter. An outbreak followed, and some of the chroniclers assert that the Venetians would have murdered Guy, had not Simon de Montfort stood by him sword in hand.131

On the main point there is no doubt. The priests ignominiously failed to protect their ally; the attack was made, and nothing shows that even de Montfort refused to share in it, or to partake of the plunder after the city fell. There was no resistance. The besieged made no better defence than hanging crosses on their walls, and on the fifth day capitulated. First the Franks divided the plunder with the Italians; then they sent an embassy to Rome to ask for absolution.

They alleged that they were helpless, and either had to accept the terms offered by Dandolo, or abandon their enterprise. Innocent submitted. He coupled his forgiveness, indeed, with the condition that the plunder should be returned;132 yet no record remains that a single mark, of all the treasures taken from Zara, ever found its way back to the original owners.

The Venetians neither asked for pardon nor noticed the excommunication. On the contrary, Dandolo used the time when the envoys were at Rome in maturing the monstrous crime of diverting the crusade from Palestine to Constantinople.

Just before the departure from Venice, an event happened which Ville-Hardouin called “one of the greatest marvels you ever heard of.” In 1195 the Greek emperor, named Isaac, had been dethroned, imprisoned, and blinded by his brother Alexis, who usurped the throne. Isaac’s son, also named Alexis, escaped, and took shelter with his brother-in-law, Philip of Swabia. Philip could not help him, but suggested to him to apply to the crusaders in Venice, and ask them for aid. Whether or not this application had been arranged by Dandolo, does not appear. Alexis went to Venice, where he was cordially received by the doge; but as the fleet was then weighing anchor, his affairs were postponed until after the attack on Zara, when an embassy from Philip arrived, which brought up the whole situation at Constantinople for consideration. In the struggle which followed between the Venetians and the Church, the Franks lay like a prize destined to fall to the stronger, and in Gunther’s narrative the love the priests bore their natural champions can be plainly seen. In the thirteenth century, as in the fifth century, the ecclesiastics recognized that over a monied oligarchy they could never have control; accordingly the monks hated the Venetians, whom Gunther stigmatized as “a people excessively greedy of money,” always ready to commit sacrilege for gain.

On his side Dandolo followed his instinct, and tried to bribe the pope by offering him an union of the communions. But Innocent was inflexible. He wrote in indignation that the crusaders had sworn to avenge the wrongs of Christ, and likened those who should turn back to Lot’s wife, whom God turned into a pillar of salt for disobeying his commands.133

Yet, though the priesthood put forth its whole strength, it was beaten. The power of wealth was too great. No serious defection took place. Ville-Hardouin gave a list of those who left the fleet, among whom was Simon de Montfort, adding contemptuously, “Thus those left the host, … which was great shame to them.”134

Judging by the words alone, a century might have separated the writer and his comrades from the barons who abandoned Agnes to Innocent; yet they were the same men transplanted to an economic civilization, and excited by the power of wealth.

On Easter Monday, 1203, the fleet sailed for Corfu, where another and more serious split occurred. But the dazzling prize finally prevailed over the fear of the supernatural, and, getting under way once more, the pilgrims crossed the Sea of Marmora, and anchored at the convent of Saint Stephen, about twelve miles from Constantinople. Since exchanges had again returned to Italy, the vitality of the Greek Empire had burned low. It was failing fast through inanition. But Byzantium was still defended by those stupendous fortifications which were impregnable from the land, and only to be assailed from the sea by an admiral of genius.